GRASS GSoC 2013 An Implementation of Horizon Based Stratigraphy for GRASS

Horizon descriptions are a ubiquitous geographic abstraction for describing three dimensional phenomena in the earth sciences. One of the major trends in modern computational geography is to render continuous fields as discrete finite elements. Substantial progress has been made, applying two dimensional matrices or rasters, to continuous fields. Essentially horizon descriptions are one dimensional sections of three dimensional bodies, with attribute data assigned to intervals within the section. Applying horizon descriptions to populate discrete three dimensional volumes is an evolutionary extension of these current trends. Different scientific disciplines are drawn to different sets of assumptions about the geographic abstraction, based on the particulars of the phenomenon that they study. Rendering three dimensional objects introduces novel issues. Thus, in building interdisciplinary toolsets like GRASS, it is important to make the assumptions used as transparent as possible. In addition it is important to evaluate the applicability of the method for the particular end use.